I was thinking of purchasing an Acer laptop with 4GB of RAM that has Windows 7 Professional preinstalled with downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional (which I will not be using). As far as I can reason, because of the downgrade rights, it includes the 32-bit version (x86) of Windows 7. I would like to use the 64-bit (x64) version of Windows 7 in order to access all 4GB of RAM (instead of the ~3.5GB cap 32-bit has). Is it possible to somehow switch my OEM copy of Windows 7 from 32- to 64-bit and if so, can someone help point me in the right direction to accomplishing that. Thanks!

2 Answers
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32-bit serial numbers are valid for 64-bit installs. The only issue, then, is getting a hold of an OEM distribution of the installation media. Remember that retail copies do not work, as they're pidded differently.

You can either call your manufacturer and ask them for a 64-bit install media, or recovery disk that has a 64-bit version of Windows, or you can try and call Microsoft and have them send you one. It's possible they will, for a fee.